Nitish writes to Jaitley raising concern over devolution

Patna: Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has written a letter to Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley expressing concern over devolution to the state over the next five years as per the 14th Finance Commission recommendations, while thanking the Finance Minister for his 'unwavering commitment' towards development of Bihar.

"I thank you for expressing an unwavering commitment of the Union Government towards overall development of Bihar and betterment of its people. However, a lot is desired in deeds, which, it seems, doesn't appear to be forthcoming," he stated in a letter to the Union Finance Minister yesterday.

Claiming that the state government's concern over proposed devolution on the basis of 14th Finance Commission recommendations has not been assuaged, Kumar claimed Bihar had been let down by the horizontal distribution of funds under the divisible pool of resources as per the 14th Finance Commission recommendations.

"Statistically, it appears that the allocation recommended by the 14th Finance Commission out of the divisible pool is 136 percent more than what was allocated by the 13th Finance Commission, but both the allocation figures are not comparable at all," the Chief Minister cited.

The commission itself has noted that since there was little scope to increase the share of aggregate transfers from the Union Government to the states, all that it has done is to suggest compositional shift in the total transfers, Kumar said.